Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself - Abraham Heschel

2005, July 26

Catcher?

I took the Quiz at the Blue Pyramid. Here is the amazing result. This was one of my favorite books when I was in my twenties, and Franny and Zooey and Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenters are still on my list of very good books to re-read.

You're The Catcher in the Rye!
by J.D. Salinger
You are surrounded by phonies, and boy are you sick of them! In an ongoing struggle to search for a land without phonies, you end up running away from everything, from school to consequences. In this process, you reveal that many people in your life have suffered torments and all you really want to do is catch them as they fall. Perhaps using a baseball mitt. Your biggest fans are infamous psychotics.

Take the Book Quiz at the Blue Pyramid.

2005, July 24

Air on a G string

Air from Orchestral Suite 3 in D, BWV 1068.2

We are now working on this short piece of music, short only in the number of notes it comprises. Bach could not let even a short aria go by without creating a masterpiece of counterpoint. Essentially, though it is often played as a solo piece, it is really a duet for two violins.

Learning, as my teacher puts it, the "choreography" of the bow makes this a very full sized piece. Here I am faced with a concept that takes as much assimilation as the idea of "no dead notes" in the Two Part Keyboard Inventions, the holding of non-moving notes in the mind while playing the moving part of the counterpoint.

Of course, the ideas, to the mind seem simple enough. However the doing of the thing is much more difficult.

Bass, viola and violin 2, with 4 eighth notes for tempo, music minus one

Full piece

Score

2005, July 18

BWV 650 Corrected

Schübler chorale 6, Come thou, Jesu, from heaven to earth (Kommst du nun, Jesu, vom Himmel herunter)

This morning I realized that the QT file of the sixth Schübler chorale has the chorale melody an octave too low. I missed the organ pedal marking, 4 fuss, meaning that it sounds an octave higher than written.

Since it is an alto aria, this makes sense, since it would be in the wrong range as I had it.

Here is the corrected file:

BWV 650

And since I have developed a fondness for the chorale an octave lower, here is the uncorrected version.

BWV 650, chorale an octave low

2005, July 12

How Brightly Beams the Morning Star

How Brightly Beams the Morning Star (Wie schön leuchtet der morgenstern)

This chorale melody is attributed to Philipp Nicolai (1544-1608), in 1599. Charles Sanford Terry comments that "it is improbable that Nicolai composed the melody" but rather more likely that he adjusted older material to his hymn. Terry goes on to state that the melody bears a partial resemblance to a 14th century carol, Resonet in laudibus.

Resonet in laudibus, harmonized by Ralph Vaughn Williams

According to Terry, the source of the hymn text is Psalm 45, but I personally cannot see a connection.

Besides the pieces below, the melody also appears in BWV 37.3 as a soprano and alto duet, and in BWV 49.6 where it is an aria duet for soprano and bass.

The music:	BWV 1.1		The opening chorale of Cantata 1. A complex chorale fantasia with the chorale in the soprano part.
	BWV 1.6		The final chorale of Cantata 1. The soprano part is doubled by the first horn and the first violin. The alto part is doubled by the second violin and the first oboe da caccia. The tenor part is doubled by the viola and the second oboe da caccia.
	BWV 36(2).4		Another four part chorale.
	BWV 61.6		This piece uses the final Amen from the chorale.
	BWV 172.6		A violin obbligato part accompanies this 4 part chorale, "How Brightly Shines the Morning Star". This is the final chorale of Cantata 172, "Erschallet, ihr Lieder" or "Ring Out, Songs, Resound".
	BWV 172.6, Vocal parts		The four part harmonization without the violin.
	BWV 172.6, violin obbligato		Violin part only.
	BWV 436		A four part chorale.

MP3 files of these chorales are available. If you want one, leave me a note in a comment with your email address and I will send it. Unfortunately, the files are too large to put them on my ftp server for general distribution.

Some names under which this chorale is known:

Wie schön leuchtet der morgenstern
How Brightly Beams the Morning Star

Discussions from the Bach Cantatas website:

BWV 1
BWV 36
BWV 61
BWV 172

Discussions from the Emmanuel Music website:

BWV 1
BWV 36
BWV 61
BWV 172 (translation)

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